A free press relies on two things: the ability to publish or broadcast without fear, and the ability to find and retrieve information vital to the public interest.

A free press relies on two things: the ability to publish or broadcast without fear, and the ability to find and retrieve information vital to the public interest.

Canada does pretty well on the first point. Canadian journalists are only occasionally jailed, beaten or forced into financial ruin for doing their job. On the second point, we are slipping.

The federal government recently killed a database that kept track of every access to information request filed every month. The loss of the CAIRS database will not cripple journalism in this country, but it is one more sign that things are getting worse, not better, in the quest to get accurate, timely information about the issues and decisions that affect Canadian lives.

The federal Access to Information Act is supposed to ensure government records are open to public scrutiny unless covered by specific exemptions that protect privacy, national security interests and a few other things. When it was proclaimed 25 years ago, many hoped the act would create a new culture of openness and accountability. In many cases, just the opposite has happened. Some records that were routinely handed over to reporters in the early 1980s are now blocked unless a formal request is filed.

A federal court recently ruled that records held in cabinet offices and the Prime Minister's Office are generally exempt from disclosure. If the ruling stands, records may be hidden from the public simply by stashing them in cabinet offices.

The information commissioner handles complaints alleging violations of the act. Exactly 2,387 complaints were filed last year by people frustrated at their inability to get records they believed were public by law. That's an 81 per cent increase over the number of complaints filed the year before. And 14 per cent of all complaints take more than two years to resolve. So much for timely information.

Some of the fights defy any obvious logic. Shouldn't Canadians be able to see the Prime Minister's agenda? Must the Prime Minister keep secret his meetings of months or years before? Shouldn't Canadians know how many prisoners our troops have captured in Afghanistan, and whether those prisoners are turned over to the forces of another country or held by our own?

There have been some successes. The act was expanded last year to cover more federal agencies and crown corporations, but overall the act is getting harder and more expensive to use, says researcher Ken Rubin.

Rubin has filed more than 30,000 access requests since 1983. At one time, he says, people were shocked when information requests took more than 90 days to fill. Now, he says, 180 days is routine. He has one request that has been pending for more than 800 days.

But Rubin suggests outrage is naive. The act was not written to open the government to public scrutiny, he says; it was written to codify secrecy. It is the job and responsibility of journalists to fight that trend to secrecy.

"It is still about straight persistence and struggle. You have to keep up with it. You have to persevere."

I spent big chunks of the last year in countries where journalists risk jail, exile or violence for criticizing elected officials. When I returned, a friend rather smugly asked if it was wonderful to be back in a land with a free press.

Not really.

It is an insult to journalists who fight for basic freedoms to take for granted the freedoms that we have in Canada. Instead of luxuriating in our ability to work without fear, we should be pressing for better access to information. We should be forcing federal, provincial and municipal governments to open up their hard drives and filing cabinets so that Canadians can truly understand the hard choices at hand, and participate fully in democracy.

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